the modern old man of the sea—fifty pounds!—a human octopus—adrift at sea—sorrow—saved—in tonga—our old man’s last hiding-place—retrospect.
the perspective of things as seen after a lapse of years seems gifted with a visionary light that has no relation to the normal outlook of the intellect. the most commonplace objects and incidents, when seen and thought over in the pale light of memory, become tinged with that indefinable glamour, that something which men call poetry. a wind-blown ship far at sea with trailing spars and torn sails beating its way into the sunset; a bird travelling silently across a foreign tropic sky; a wild girl singing by a lagoon; a dead tree tossing its arms on a windy hill; an old gentleman with a little clerical hat bashed over his eyes; the remembrance of a tiny, golden-eyed girl, with a bit of blue ribbon in her hair as she sprang into your farewell arms when you said good-bye and went off, a boy, on your first voyage to sea—i say, all these things seem to be the landmarks, the promontories of the shores one has hugged as one sailed across the wild seas of life.
and, in looking back, that old gent of the south sea organization seems to stand out, not so much as a wicked, eccentric individual, as he does of a type that represents nine-tenths of the men whom one is doomed to knock up against in one’s pilgrimage along this shore of hope and sudden chills, wrecks, and buffeted dreams.
i know that that old man came to us in the guise of a benefactor who would bestow wealth on o’hara and on 327me, whereas he turned out to be a nemesis wrapt up in the vilest disguise, a nemesis who seemed to take some vindictive delight in the frailties of youth, and was guilty of unwarrantable cruelty to a child’s innocence. i have sometimes thought that neither he, nor the organization itself, ever existed in this world as men know things to exist; that i once lived in a phantasmagorial world of ghostly sunlight and shadow that was haunted by an aged man who wore side-whiskers, clung to my back like an old man of the sea, and successfully throttled my faith in supreme goodness. it was our lack of funds and the old man’s abundant wealth that brought the whole business about. and, though i know that the lack of funds on the one side and an abundance of funds on the other side has brought about the direst disasters beneath the sun, still, i feel that the sorrow that came to us through that old fellow is worth recording.
i think it was the very next day that o’hara and i saw our chance of luring the old gentleman away from the organization to see if he was really in earnest about that fifty pounds he said he would give to the first one who got him safely away. in the little that we had seen of him we observed that he was weak where native girls and dancing-women were concerned. when o’hara had acquainted him with the fact that there was a great tribal-dance on down in the village of takarora, that the chiefs were going to pow-wow and the meke-girls eat fire and dance, he took hold of our hands, and begged us to take him to see the sight.
“i’ve read a bit about these people in books, but, dear boys, i’d really like to see the grandeur of primitive life in the natural state.” so spake that old man. then off we went, with the old gent in our company, down the forest track.
“i never did see a place like this,” said o’hara, as we 328both gave a startled jump—two dusky, faun-like creatures had suddenly peered through the tasi-ferns and exotic convolvulus festoons, and, seeing our white faces, had given a scream and sped off to their homestead in the pagan village. the old gentleman placed his hand on his heart, took a swill from his brandy-flask, and said it was enough to give one syncope to live in such a blasted heathenland. then he reshaped his clerical hat, that had been bashed in by a banyan bough, and once more followed us through the interminable growth of camphor, sage-palm, and all that mysterious assemblage of twisting trunks and vines that nature fashions where the sunlight burns with fiery heat.
when we got to the native village the girls, clad in decorative festival costume, were dancing away in full swing. on the forum-lecture-stump that faced the village green stood some pagan philosopher, spouting for all he was worth about the new edict passed by the missionaries—prohibition of rum-selling on sundays.
“what’s he saying, soogy?” said i, as that haunting kiddie rushed up to us, for we never could get rid of him. then soogy told me, in pigeon english, that the old pagan chief was shouting:
“down with the brown man’s burden! down with the cursed white man wrapped in clothes!”
i must admit he looked a nasty old heathen as he put forth his dark chin, lifted his face to the forest roof, and called on the old heathen gods to hear the prayers of their faithful child. when he had finished he took a huge nip from the kava calabash, and the native girls commenced to give a fascinating two-step whilst the next chief oiled his hair and prepared for a speech.
“now’s your chance!” said i to o’hara, for the old gentleman seemed in the most convivial of moods as he stared at the dancing maids. i confess that i was not 329good at giving a hint to a man who had promised fifty pounds if a certain thing was done for him and had apparently forgotten all about his promise. as o’hara sidled up to the old gentleman’s side, i remained within comfortable earshot.
“hard times these,” said my pal, as he looked first towards the old man and then towards the dancers. still the old fellow stared in a vacant way, fingered and readjusted his pince-nez as the stout chiefess did a most peculiar somersault while performing the heathen tango. o’hara got desperate; it got on his mettle to be ignored like that. he sidled up a little closer to the old man, and i distinctly heard him say, as he stared in an absentminded way in front of himself: “hard times these; wish there was a chance of getting fifty pounds, somehow!”
it wanted some pluck to give a hint like that, i can tell you. the old fellow had a freezing way with him too. polish does hang on one when one is born where the missing bank-managers hail from. yet o’hara did the trick; for the old fellow stared on for a long time as though he’d not heard a word, then he turned quietly to my comrade and said: “i suppose you really could get me safely away to lakemba, so that i could catch the next boat?”
o’hara at once unfolded part of his scheme to the old chap, who seemed mighty pleased at the way o’hara presented the matter to him. the scheme was that we should hire one of the large, full outrigger-canoes from the natives, and paddle the old man across the mile or so of ocean that separated us from lakemba. we happened to know that at lakemba there was a schooner due to sail for honolulu, and the old fellow knew as well as we that it was an easy matter to get a boat from honolulu to san francisco. so the matter was arranged.
330then o’hara went off to the shore village, made all his plans, hired a large outrigger-canoe that could hold twenty warriors, and decided that at the first opportunity we should clear out with the old man, for we thought that we could kill two birds with one stone and get away to honolulu in the same schooner. but since man proposes and god disposes, nothing came off as arranged, excepting that we did succeed in getting away from that place. the old man seemed as pleased as punch after that scheme had been so rosily presented to him. when we got back to the shanty we discovered that the old gentleman had presented each member with a five-pound note, and that they were all drinking his health from the large barrel of rum he had specially purchased for them. they all put out their horny hands and one after the other gripped his hand, looking quite affected as he called them “my dear sons,” and ordered the native girls to serve out the rum. i saw his old eyes shine as he looked into their wicked faces. they were not all villainous-looking; some were as honest as the sunlight, were castaway sailormen, or traders who had arrived at that organization as bona fide travellers who would rest there a while.
a special concert was given on the old chap’s behalf that night. the native women from tambu-tambu came in and danced on the saloon pae-pae. oaths and wild reminiscences were in full swing. the old gentleman became loquacious, sat with lifted finger telling billy bode a naughty story, and everyone listened with deep respect. for those wild men instinctively felt that the old fellow was an oasis in the desert for them. he had promised them twenty pounds apiece and another barrel of the best rum ere he left the organization’s roof, consequently his interest and safety were their interest and 331safety, and when suddenly a tremendous crash came at the organization’s front door, they rose en masse! in a flash they saw the promised rum and “twenty pounds apiece” in danger. in a moment they were on the defensive. piff! the packs of half-shuffled cards dropped on the table bench; puff! went forty bearded lips, and out went forty tallow candles—candles that were suspended from the low roof in gin bottles. that old gent must have thought a human octopus with ten thousand arms and legs had seized him! every “man jack” of them had made a grab at him in the darkness—crash! down went the vast lid of the emergency barrel; they had lifted him bodily to the roof, and then, with a mighty thrust, so that he was sure to fit in (for he was stout) they had crashed him into that gigantic tub!
someone opened the door and let the moonlight in. it gleamed across the stubbily whiskered, wild-looking faces of the men of the shanty, faces flushed with drink and the thought that the prisoner in the tub, who had promised such wealth, might be seized and taken down to suva in chains! it seemed that fate stared with determined eyes when those scarred faces looked on the new-comers, who stood like shadows at the doorway. there was no doubt about it; they were men-hunters! then there was a lot of bustling and whispering, fearful efforts, and big bribes were promised to allay suspicion, as eight of the stoutest organization members sat on the lid of the tub, grim determination on their faces, a resolve in their eyes to sell their lives dearly ere they gave up that mighty hope with side-whiskers and such promises!
when those surveillants went away, quite convinced that they were on the wrong track, the whole shanty’s crew breathed a sigh of relief. it sounded as though a young hurricane slept there, and had stirred in its sleep 332as a score of “phews!” of delighted relief went across the hot, rum-smelling compartment, as one by one the candles were relit. swiftly taking the lid off the emergency barrel, they dragged forth the old gentleman. their hearts were touched by the sight they beheld. his eyes rolled, his clerical hat looked like a broken pancake stuck on his head, it was smashed flat through the sudden uncalculated fall of the heavy lid in the darkness.
“what was that?” he wailed, as he recovered consciousness, and the light of reason flickered across the pupils of his sunken eyes.
“nothing much,” said someone soothingly, as they pushed his smashed hat into shape. it was like attempting to stand a corpse on its feet, ere rigor mortis had set in, when they tried to stand him up.
“blimey! he’s a-going, blest if ’e ain’t,” said one. then they poured some rum down his throat.
rum seemed to have its virtues, for the old man made a wonderful recovery after the dose was poured down his throat. half an hour afterwards he was singing “little annie rooney’s my sweetheart,” and telling jokes. then he sang again till his voice got wheezy, telling tales as he banged his fist on the bench, and nudged the men in the ribs, while they roared with laughter! still he drank on. “rum! rum!” shouted he. then he stood up on the bench and danced with a stout native woman from tambu-tambu village. the delight of the women and the shanty members was such that they nearly raised the roof with their wild encores and shouts. he did a two-step dance! he mimicked the indescribable barbarian contortions of that native woman’s monstrous antics! he smacked her bare arms, pinched her tawny flesh, winked like an old roué, showing conclusively what manner of man he really was. the native children peeped through the shanty doorway, and when they observed 333that fashionable old gentleman dancing away with a woman of their own land, they shrieked with delight. the atmosphere of the stone age seemed to hang about the old man as the derelicts around him cheered every “turn” he gave, as he repeatedly recaught each “fine careless rapture”!
then the hubbub subsided, and one by one the drunken audience fell asleep. old tideman, who was a crank on astronomy, crept outside with his telescope to look at the stars. the wide-open door revealed the moonlit palms just outside and the few straggling figures of sulu-clad natives who had crept from afar to listen to the songs of the wild white men! the last that was seen of the old man that night was when he went off down the track, his little clerical hat bashed over his eyes, his arms waving as he tried to make his companion understand how he admired her frizzly mop hair and lustrous eyes. for it was the fat native woman with whom he had danced a fijian jig on the bench table! o’hara grinned when he met the old gent in the morning. he responded by giving him a freezing stare, as though he hardly knew him! he looked quite pious, as though he only indulged in plain milk diet and studied ecclesiastical problems. he looked bad though; one can’t bribe the liver and make its overflow look blushing and rosy red when it’s really a bilious green! the night of debauchery had aged him considerably. his hands shook; he didn’t know which way to go. first he picked a flower, chewed it, then wiped his mouth and his clammy forehead. o’hara went straight into business then, and said:
“i’m clearing out to-day. i’ve hired a fine outrigger-canoe that’s big enough to hold twenty.” then he looked square into the aged fugitive’s face, and asked him if he was coming along with us.
334he was as pleased to get away from that place as we were, that was very evident, for he decided to go away with o’hara and myself at once. there was no need for secrecy, the shanty was quiet as the grave; for the sleeping reprobates were making up by day for sleep lost through the night. only the forest banyans sighed as we three crept away into the shadows, and then even the wail of the derelict captain’s concertina faded away as we plunged into the dense wood. when we arrived at the native village we found, to our disgust, that the man who had promised to lend us the canoe was out fishing in it.
“it’s no good getting ratty, guv’nor,” said o’hara, as the old fellow began to swear, and said he’d go back to the organization. we breathed a sigh of relief when the native boat-owner at length returned. in a moment we were off, bound for the shore. the old man dropped his walking-stick in his hurry; we were all anxious to get away. as we went down the long grove of feathery palms and giant breadfruits the stars were shining over the sea. we could feel the cool drifts of wind coming in as they stirred the wild odours of half-dead forest flowers and decaying pineapples. as we tramped down the soft shore-track we saw the fireflies dancing in the bamboos that grew high up on the edge of the rocky slope above us, far ahead. it seemed as though we were looking through a telescope and could see myriads of tiny worlds sparkling and dancing far away in infinite space.
when we arrived down by the big shore lagoon, there lay the large outrigger, floating on the still water, just as the native told us it would be. he trusted us. for were we not “noble papalagis”?
not a soul was in sight as we stepped into that strange craft. in a minute or two we had pushed off into the deeper water. we were both dab hands at paddling. 335the scene looked like some picture of enchantment, some picturesque landscape out of an arabian nights’ entertainment. only the dipping of the paddles which rippled the glassy oil-painting-like stillness of the creek’s water gave a certain reality to the mystic scene. the old man might have been some weird old “pasha of many tales” starting off on a voyage into fairy-land with a clerical hat on. it was only the swelling on the side of his head where he had been thrust into the emergency barrel that reminded one of gross, mundane things.
it was a terrifically hot night. the sea just outside was perfectly calm and wonderfully bright. on the horizon shone the large, low, yellow moon, bringing into relief the wild inland shores, gullies, buttressed banyans, and belts of mangroves that grew down to the ocean’s edge.
the moon looked like some far-off, phantom tunnel-way as the ornamental prow of our canoe turned and glided silently, making straight for its ghostly rim, due south. the old fellow’s face was turned towards its magnificent mystery; o’hara sat in the centre of the canoe, and i aft. we were not more than twenty yards from the shore then. it really did look as though we were paddling away from some enchanted isle; only the cry of some strange night-bird and the leap of a tidal wave over the reefs, as it splashed into the lagoon’s still water, made a feeble, ghost-like noise.
“it’s quite safe, fellows, i suppose?” queried the old man, as he looked anxiously about him.
“safe as houses,” o’hara replied. then he said, “what’s that?”
we all looked shoreward. out by the edge of the promontory we distinctly saw a tiny phosphorescent splash as though some strange animal had darted from the forest and dived into the deep water.
336we still watched, then we distinctly saw shivering lines of silver ripples stealing towards us, coming fast, trembling and spreading swiftly on the ocean’s perfectly calm, moonlit surface.
“it’s something big swimming under the water. begorra! a shark coming for us!” said o’hara. the old gent shot up on his feet with fright and nearly upset the canoe! i think my comrade and i looked a bit palish as the uncanniness of that movement of the unseen came straight for us. “wish i’d brought a revolver. by st. patrick! who’d ’ave thought things was a-going to swim after us under the blasted water?”
“keep still; don’t move!” said i, my heart in my mouth, for the ripples were within thirty yards of our canoe, and still no sign whatever of the cause of that mysterious movement beneath the water.
then we stared as though we’d sighted a ghost; up poked a tiny curly head, two bright, beautiful eyes were staring reproachfully at me!
“good lord!” i gasped; “it’s soogy!”
we pulled him into the canoe. o’hara used an awful swear word, said unprintable things. as for me, i felt some strange, haunting kind of a fear come over me as the child sat there.
“you go tryer and getter away from your little soogy?” said that weird child.
“no,” said i, shaking my head, feeling guilty as i replied, “no, soogy,” half apologetically! then i said: “we were coming back to-morrow morning. how on earth did you know we were out here in a canoe?”
the little fellow’s eyes brightened; he simply looked at me earnestly for a while, then said:
“i knower all ’bout you! the wind blow in cave by sea and tell me all.”
337“well, i’m blithered and damned if that kid won’t bring us bad luck,” said o’hara.
soogy had calmly got to the rear of the canoe, had taken the steering-rod, and had started to guide us with the splendid precision of a native child. the prow was toward the south, bound for the isle of lakemba.
“i suppose you know your way?” suddenly said the old gentleman, as he leaned forward, struck a match, and lit a cigar.
o’hara never answered, simply looked contemptuously at the white-whiskered face as the mouth sent up curling whiffs of blue smoke into the clear moonlit air. we were out in the deep ocean by then, paddling for all we were worth. the distance by night took one quite out of sight of land; even by daylight the nearest shore-line in the farthest distance looked like a blue blotch on the horizon.
i think we had been paddling about an hour when the moon suddenly went out and seemed to leave a puff of bright smoke behind—it had gone behind a cloud.
“that was sudden-like!” said o’hara.
it was a puff of wind; it blew the old gentleman’s hat off.
“hope it’s not going to blow,” was my mental comment, as once again a breath came down from the sky and stirred the glassy surface. the old fellow saw the look in our eyes, and, guessing that things were not as well as they could be, said: “why didn’t you tell me we had to go out of sight of land? i’d never have risked this; i wouldn’t—i wouldn’t,” he muttered to himself. then without further warning it came—crash! a typhoon was on us. the first blast nearly blew the outrigger out of the water. the only reason that it didn’t turn turtle was that the outrigger contrivance had been constructed by the superior savage intellect. it seemed 338that the bright worlds of stars and sea had been sponged off the map of existence, as we clung to each other, and the mountainous seas heaved their backs and began to roar like thunder around us. the old fellow had lost his nerve, he wept and implored us to save him; but o’hara and i were very busy saving ourselves in that chaos of dark and wind and ramping seas.
soogy was there all right, i felt his hand clinging to my leg.
“keep still! for god’s sake, don’t move!” we both cried, as the old man came to our end of the canoe, nearly upsetting our planet, for such that craft was to us. soogy had taken a paddle to help o’hara and so keep her head on to the tremendous seas, but it was no use; she slewed round and went broadside on, and so the seas swamped us. but still we did not sink. those stout bamboo poles kept the craft buoyant and steady as compared to what would have happened had they not been there. for soogy was sitting on the dancing outrigger, balancing it as the big seas came on and tried in vain to turn us upside down! ah, he was a plucky little beggar, quite devoid of fear. we three men simply gave up the ghost so far as making intelligent efforts to save ourselves were concerned. o’hara clung to me, i clung to o’hara, and the old fellow clung to us both. the hot, terrific wind hissed, shrieked over us as we felt the canoe go up—up! on the mountainous seas, then down—down! into the terrible thundering valleys as the angry waters fell. then once again we were climbing the travelling hills that were drifting us away far out into the vast solitude of the pacific ocean!
it seemed as if that dark and roaring wind hung over our heads for infinite ages. how we clung to that outrigger and were not washed away is a mystery that is connected with providence and that word “inscrutable.” 339when dawn at length brightened all the east, i lifted my head half fearfully. soogy was huddled beside me, o’hara on the other side, so tight that we were wedged in. the old gentleman had managed to fix his head and neck under the forward canoe-seat in such a way that he had become a part of the canoe itself! his bald head, through sea-water repeatedly washing over it, had become quite bluish-looking. by some miracle his clerical-shaped hat still lay just beside him. when o’hara softly pulled his coat to see if he was still alive, he half opened his eyes and rolled them in a pathetic way. the fact that he still lived relieved our loneliness. the wind had ceased, but the swell remained, huge rolling hills of glassy water rising and travelling at about four knots an hour. we immediately commenced to bale out the canoe, using a calabash and a tin which we discovered beneath the seat. soogy and the old man helped o’hara and myself in this task. we all felt deeply thankful when the sun burst out over the great waste in all its tropical vigour. soogy began to sing, and cheered us up. none of us seemed to realize the true state of affairs, that we were out of sight of land, were castaways on the pacific, our paddles gone, and only about two pints of water in a rusty tin can!
the hot sunlight soon dried our soaked clothing.
the old fugitive became transformed. the erstwhile freezing look in his eyes had gone, and was replaced by a gleam of friendly appeal to us! it was quite evident that he saw things as they were, and had admitted o’hara and myself into his social circle, so to speak. he gave us cigars. to our relief he discovered some matches in his breast pocket; they were damp, but we placed them on the rim of his clerical hat and they soon dried in the hot sunlight. that hat had gone through something! to this day i cannot look at a clerical hat without thinking 340of typhoons and tropic skies shining over wastes of water surrounded by illimitable skylines.
we commenced carefully, and drank a very small drop of water each. we made several attempts to make paddles out of the spare calabash and the slit wood of a canoe seat, but it was no good. we were drifting at about four knots an hour to the north-east.
as the hours went by we began to realize our position. and yet, somehow, it seemed incredible that we should be cast away on those lonely waters so easily.
“a ship is sure to pass us soon,” said o’hara.
“of course it is,” i replied, as our aged companion put his hand to his brow and repeatedly scanned the horizon. i even laughed, and so did o’hara, and i thought of my old sea-adventure books, and felt quite a romantic hero of the tropic seas. but i soon began to feel very unheroic, and felt inclined to laugh on “the other side of my mouth,” as they say. it was the coming of night that made the romantic novelty wear off. there’s nothing in the world like the shadows of night coming over the heads of castaways to make them sadly realize, so i should think. reality came down on us like a huge, fate-like hand, and seemed to crush, smash us as though we were bedraggled flies on a mighty window-pane!
night was a nightmare with a myriad starry eyes. thirst had us in its grip, but we dare not drink the tiny drop of water that remained in the can. i fell asleep for five minutes, but only managed to fall off into some gulf of misery that was mixed up with the horror of death and castaway canoes. then o’hara and i sat up and started to sing a sea-chanty, to cheer up the old gentleman and little soogy. but, withal, soogy was plucky enough. as for the aged fugitive, he started to carry on in a terrible way, and kept crying out: “lost at sea in a boat! lost at sea in a boat!” then he got sleepy and 341mumbled it out in a pathetic, far-away tone, and got on our nerves more than i can express in cold words.
i once fancied that i saw the light of a passing vessel, but it soon died away, whatever it was.
“may the holy virgin protect us all!” said o’hara.
then dawn came. soogy stopped singing songs. the sight of the child’s bright, fevered eyes and parched lips unnerved us. o’hara did the worst thing he could do, gave the child a tiny drop of spirit as he lay moaning out on the twisted bamboo grating of the outrigger. soogy tried hard to buck up, but his small frame hadn’t the lasting power that our larger frames possessed. at the end of the second day, as near as i can remember, we realized our position, and knew that we were floating on the very edge of eternity. the old man became quite brave. his eyes lost all the old cunning and craft that i had so particularly observed in them. even then, my numbed senses seemed to realize that it was only the worldly world that makes men bad, the earthly values of things inspiring them with greed till their darker passions overgrow their better qualities as weeds overgrow and strangle flowers.
we shared out the last drop of water. the old gentleman gave soogy a part of his share, and we did likewise. o’hara became quite religious, in the true sense of that much misused word. through the whole day and night we never ceased lifting our weary heads to stare on the skyline. but no vessel passed. the old man placed his large red handkerchief over soogy. it was a terrible sight, as soogy’s hands tossed, to see the blisters on the little arms. but it was no use waving to the hot tropic sun as it shone up there in the cloudless sky.
“we’re done for,” said o’hara; then he, too, lay down again, and seemed to grow careless as to whatever might happen.
342that night soogy revived in a wonderful way. i was lying in a semi-conscious state when i felt someone gently touch my arm.
“you sorry for soogy?” said a far-away-sounding voice. the child was staring in my eyes in a strange, quiet way.
“perhaps i’m dreaming,” i thought, as a great sense of the unreal came over me. my heart began to thump and my senses to whirl and swim. o’hara and the old man were lying just beside us, perfectly quiet, as though dead. i stared into the eyes of the wistful little face.
“is it you, soogy?” i said in a hushed voice, as i lifted my aching head. “dear god!” i muttered, as i realized something for the first time, while the child’s eyes stared into my own. i felt that i had never seen such soft, beautiful eyes before. floating there, under the stars of the tropic seas, nothing seemed too strange or wonderful to occur. a terrible sorrow possessed me as i touched the soft, tiny hand, and pressed my lips to those pleading lips! for a little while, that seemed like a thousand years, soogy huddled beneath the folds of my coat.
“you come to me if i die, come to heathenland?” such was what a faint voice, like far-off music, whispered in my ears. i cannot say one word of all that i whispered into the child’s ear. i said mad things, i know.
“i happy now, papalagi,” whispered that faint, strange voice.
at daybreak soogy died.
o’hara laid the silent form out on the edge of the outrigger’s grating. all that day o’hara and i kept our backs turned towards that silent form, lying there, face downwards. i told o’hara to lay soogy like that. i couldn’t stand seeing those earnest eyes staring all night up at the merciless infinity of stars.
343the old fugitive became insane. we only saw his head move; he had covered it over with a bit of sacking to keep the sun’s rays off.
“forgive me, cissie—forgive me, cissie; keep the keys—keep the keys,” he kept saying over and over again in his delirium. the sky was no longer a sky to me, it was a monstrous slab lying over a mighty vault wherein the dead still breathed as they floated and tossed their arms in agony on illimitable waters.
soogy’s death seemed to revive o’hara and me; yet we said very little to each other. it was a world of dreams that we stared in, some phantasmagorial existence where only death whispered as the outrigger plopped in the star-mirroring deep around us. o’hara was no longer my pal in sorrow; we had become rivals in some terrible struggle of will-power. the energy of the whole universe seemed to be wholly concentrated on one vital move on the tremendous chess-board of that phantasmal world of water whereon we drifted. o’hara and i were the sorrowing slaves of fate; nothing else existed, only he and i and the dreadful thought as to which one of us must put forth our hand and make that terrible move. it was inevitable that one of us must do it, for on those tropic seas there was no other way than to crawl out on the outrigger and push that small dead form into the vast depths that moved around us. the tropic moon loomed on the horizon. it might have been the uprising sun, for all i knew, in that world of horror that i had been plunged into. i looked over the canoe’s side and gazed into the glassy depths. i saw a great shark gliding along under the surface. it seemed natural that it should be there, waiting for us. i gazed in a languid, interested way as that cannibal of the deep turned softly over on its back and revealed its shining belly. its cruel, monstrous mouth looked like some materialized jaw of pallid 344hate as it softly snapped at my shadow that lay in the moonlit deep, and severed it in two! then o’hara dissolved into some cobweb-like substance and was blown away on the puff of wind that crept across the hot seas.
dawn came like a mighty torrent of silver and swept across the silent world of waters. i felt that i was floating across shadow-seas. for a little while i heard a faint moaning and felt cool sea-water slashing over me. i tried to move, but something held my feet down in a merciless grip. it was all the more terrible because i realized in some mysterious way that i was far at sea on that castaway canoe. the fact was, that a breeze had sprung up and the canoe was being tossed wildly to and fro. why none of us was thrown out is a mystery. anyhow, the blow was of short duration, for i suddenly lifted my head, and saw o’hara and the old gentleman lying perfectly still beside me. then the world seemed to change again: night fell over the sea. again i watched that silent form lying out on the grating. again the dawn sent grey wings along the eastern horizon. it was then that i became strangely calm, and, terrible as the sight was, as that child lay dead on the grating of the canoe, i smiled and looked upon it all as the most commonplace of experiences.
“good-bye, soogy,” i said, then i gently pushed the small figure from the bamboo-outrigger. some terrible spell of curiosity gripped me. i stared down into the water in wistful fascination, as, leaning over, i watched the spot where the ripples spread, where the small form had gone down, down into the clear, still ocean depth at dawn. i could still distinctly see soogy sinking down into the grave! it looked like the figure of some tiny child imaged in some vast crystal mirror as down, down it went. only the mournful cry of a solitary sea-bird, as it passed across the sky and sent a shadow over that 345wandering grave, broke the stillness. then i saw the figure begin to sway rhythmically to some deep ocean current. presently it looked no bigger than a penny terra-cotta-coloured doll.
ah, i had hoped to find that it was all a dream as i still watched, rubbed my eyes, and hoped with a terrible hope. i well knew, as that tiny remnant of mortality faded from sight, that i was living in some terrible sorrow of reality. i thought of those forest dances away in fiji, of the weird, tender glances of those deep, golden-iris eyes, when soogy crept out of the forest palms to make my bed. i remembered the sweet, weird song the heathen child had sung to me, and how the witch-like little singer had stared across the camp-fire till i had felt some strange fright! but the mystery of it all had vanished, for, on the second night after the storm, o’hara and i had discovered the truth—soogy was no boy at all, but a half-caste polynesian girl!
a great silence seemed to come over the world after soogy sank from sight. and then my dreams were broken, and i fancied i could hear the breakers beating against eternity. someone touched me softly on the brow, and a voice said:
“try and stand on your feet; we’re saved, pal.”
i half realized something, and sat up. i looked immediately to the southward and saw the eternal wastes of sea-skyline, then i glanced round and noticed that our canoe was tossing about on a heavy swell just off a rocky coast. we were so near the reefs that i could head the soughing of the wind along the bending tracts of shore palms (it turned out to be the tonga islands). o’hara was sitting on the bamboo grating of the canoe’s outrigger. his face appeared extremely thin and was ghastly pale. the aged fugitive sat huddled by the prow, his battered clerical hat held in his trembling hand, his 346chin on his chest, a wild look in his eyes. they both looked like emaciated phantom-figures, quite unreal. only at that moment in my life did i realize in a flash how we mortals are but shadows moving through some dream that divides our existence from the boundless reality of the great shadowland. true enough, too, i had awakened from a terrible reality into a darker dream.
“the child’s gone!” said o’hara.
“i know,” i muttered in a vacant way before i realized the truth. then, in the terror of dawning realization, i gasped out, “where’s soogy?”
“she must have been washed away by the squall last night,” said o’hara, and his voice was as gentle as a girl’s.
after that tragical experience we were taken in by the missionaries at tonga and treated with the kindness that is always shown to shipwrecked men wherever they may go. we soon recovered physically from the buffeting of our castaway voyage. i know that in the comfort of life under secure conditions in tonga, the old gentleman’s freezing look almost came back to his little blue eyes; but when he discovered that i was a professional violinist as well as a vagabond troubadour, his manner became almost polite. this deeply-rooted conventional attribute of the old man’s was the more noticeable when i secured a position at nukualofa as court violinist to king george of tonga,[8] also a munificent salary that was considerably augmented by gifts from the head missionaries, who willingly paid me for my solos at the mission-room concerts. my irish comrade could hardly believe his eyes when i stood on the primitive platforms of the native villages and became an enthusiastic appealer to the souls of the pagan tongans. i recall that, when 347i played and conducted the royal string band in the native wedding-march on the marriage of some prince of the old dynasty, the queen of tonga presented me with an exquisitely carved tortoise-shell comb from her hair. indeed, i was doing exceedingly well, considering that i had no letters of introduction. this kind of thing went on for nearly three weeks, when a full-rigged sailing-ship, the “orontes,” dropped anchor off the island. its sails gleaming in the sunset, shining like beautiful signals of romance, called me, till the old roaming spirit, asserting itself, shattered all my ambitions over kings, queens, missionaries, court appointments, and salaries. the “orontes” was bound for ysabel, solomon isles, and british new guinea. when i went aboard her and interviewed the skipper, telling him i wanted a berth, he shook his head, and said he could get a dozen kanakas for the price of a drink, as good as any white men, any day. and so, when the “orontes,” with her sails bellying to the winds, bowed to the sunset on her long voyage across the pacific, o’hara and i lay huddled on old sacks in the deep gloom of the forepeak-hold, where we had secured the cheapest berth—as stowaways!
8. king george of tonga died recently, 1918.
in my imagination i can still see o’hara’s grimy, unshaven face as he sits in the gloom beside me, puffs his short pipe, and drinks at regular intervals from the water-bottle. the rats squeak.
“don’t smoke, for heaven’s sake,” i say, as o’hara strikes another match on the ship’s iron side. i feel sick enough in that stuffy hold as the vessel pitches to the swell. then, as i sit there amongst the strong, evil-smelling merchandise of our wandering argosy, i place my fiddle on my knee and go “pink-e-te ponk-e-te,” pizzicato style, as my fingers strum out an old english melody.
“for god’s sake, shut up, pal!” says o’hara, as we hear the sailormen tramping on the deck just overhead, 348as they go on watch in the silence of the hot tropic night.
but all that’s past now. my irish comrade went out of my life years ago. and i suppose the old fugitive, with his clerical hat, has long since paid his last debt, and kind men have hidden his artful face in that place where no living man will search to find him. as for the charity organization, it has most probably discarded long ago its primitive style and locality, and now maybe does its good work from some more palatial institution in the remoter islands of the pacific. with the advancement of civilization things are carried on in more sumptuous style. indeed, i would not be surprised to hear that the new charity organization hermitage, that welcomes the homeless derelicts who have flown in haste from the western cities, has a gilded dome and spire peeping from a solitary forest of some remote isle of the southern seas. possibly a secret cable runs under the pacific, running straight from its guarding seclusion, sending out warnings to its prospective protégés. indeed, even in those far-off days, bones’ establishment at fiji had depots that extended to the extreme points of the civilized world. and it was marvellous how often the keen surveillants of the australian seaboard cities were baffled in their search for missing bank-managers, etc. so wags the world, things only apparently changing as one age appears to differ from another age. it is only the hearts of men that remain the same, as the centuries pass and fashions change, so that men may open their doors inwards instead of outwards, and so sit and dream that the moral codes of the world have become reversed. even my rose-coloured spectacles remain the same; though they have become somewhat dimmed, i can still fix them on and gaze with hopeful eyes on the wondrous pageant of life that moves with me along the great vagabond track. and many times have 349i sought to lend them to sad men and women who staggered beside me, yes, as they stared blindly through their bits of smoky glass. but sometimes i shiver with dread at the possibility that i may some day grow wise and restrained, and no longer love fairy-tales, fallen, sinful men, and beautiful women of four years old. and so i often rekindle my camp-fire and sit alone, so that i may hear the forest trees singing overhead. it is then that o’hara comes back out of the shadows; and, as i play my violin, sings some rollicking irish song. and, strange as it may appear to some, when the log fire is burning low, a misty pageant passes before my eyes. one by one my old tribal poets, attired in all the primitive majesty of tattoo and tapu-robes, stalk by me, and pass silently down the moonlit banyan groves. ’tis then that the call comes again; for i am the doomed rolling stone that gathered the magical moss of these memoirs and all that has made me know how little men are, and humbly realize that i have chanced to live universally instead of only roaming in my boots over the wide spaces of this beautiful world. in this wise i have found and placed carefully down any little campfire-gleams of interest which my book may possess, as well as having found my religion in some sorrow of the eternity of all things past. i still jog along, carrying my staff and my violin, and weighted swag of dreams, as i roam along the forest track. and, though i have many years to travel ere i become old, i can say in the deeper sense of its meaning:
there’s not a flower along the wild hillside,
or song-bird of the woods that sang and died,
but it has kinship with the winds that blow
o’er memory’s forest trees of long ago.
and not a beggar in the distant lands
but i am with him, heart and soul and hands—
to help him carry his old swag of dreams
350in some great twinship of our shattered schemes;
as deep within my heart i hear the chime
of night winds tolling all the bells of time—
in some old belfry of the stars they ring
the songs the dead men dream and cannot sing.
even the bluest, grandest ocean of the world exists in my mind only as some deep, solemn hymning that tells the briefness of mortal existence. sometimes, when i hear the wind blow in the night, my thoughts go flying out to the wide pacific that heaves under the stars, and is, to me, the vast, wandering grave wherein ill-fated soogy, the native child, sleeps.
